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Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy was among the crowd who gathered Saturday for Pickens’ 90th birthday party at the Dallas Country Club. Most of the 450 waited in a lengthy line to be photographed with Pickens, who wore an OSU orange blazer.

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Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was there. So was Cowboys legend Roger Staubach. So were OSU President Burns Hargis and athletic director Mike Holder, along with former OSU quarterback Brandon Weeden and former OSU golfer Rickie Fowler.

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In OSU’s original plan of an $86 million renovation, nothing was scheduled to have been done at the west end of the stadium. With the Pickens money, there was a $283 million project that included a west-end complex, 10,000 additional seats and 36 additional suites.

As recently as 2003, OSU had no luxury suites in the stadium. Now, including the 13 that are contained within Gallagher-Iba Arena, OSU has 123 suites for football. For the 2017 season, they all were sold.

“If we hadn’t had this gift,” OSU athletic director Mike Holder says of Pickens’ monumental donation, “I feel like we would have been dead in the water for the next 20 years.”

Appreciate the feedback. I can understand how that would come across that way here since I posted it to an OSU sports forum on the message board.

I think the presentation at our site helps it not appear as much of a sports story as a personal story, with a picture of Boone Pickens next to OSU president Burns Hargis i.e. (as opposed to next to Mike Gundy) and the summary sentence right below the headline on the main page: "The T. Boone Pickens who had everything and did everything now aspires at 90 to be what he was at 88." On the article itself, the subheadline is "‘Complicated guy’ who has been both famous and infamous, Pickens’ legacy is anchored by his generosity."